The Ji Village News

季庄新闻–Haidong Ji’s Blog

This is an updated entry with more pictures.

I collected 2 travel bugs during my trip to Plano, Texas. For those who don’t know, travel bugs are part of geocaching game. The bug has a unique identification number so it can be tracked. Travellers move the bug around from cache to cache and share its journey and pictures on line. It is a pretty neat idea.

I have moved several travel bugs. A few bugs went on a trip with us to Sweden last year. This past February, I brought one back to Chicago from my Barcelona trip. The one I picked up at Plano called Digicam is from the UK. We also got one near O’Hare airport called Tigger.

Anyway, sometimes life can really get in the way of geocaching: I couldn’t find time to move those 2 bugs around for almost 2 months. Sunday’s weather was cooperative. So on Sunday morning my son and I accompanied the 2 bugs for a brief tour of Oak Park.

This is a shot of Scoville Park, next to the library. We come here quite often:

We watched some Star Wars movies lately and got Benjamin a light sabre toy last week. He’s been pretending to be a Jedi ever since. The sabre is collapsible and has a hook so it can be hung on a belt, very much like the “real” one in the movie. He hooked it on his trousers while walking around. He wanted to keep his identity secret and was pretty successful for the most part.

Here are two shots of the Jedi at work.

We then proceeded to Hemingway Museum, right across the street from the park. The museum, which is downstairs in the building, does not open on Sunday morning. But we entered the building because there was some religious service upstairs so the main entrance was open. I visited here a few years back and probably should visit again. One thing that touched me particularly then was reading one of his love letters. I read the Chinese translation of The Old Man And The Sea awhile ago. I am not sure if I read any of his other works while in China. A few years back I started one of his Spanish Civil War novels but didn’t finish for whatever reason. I will give it another try some time later, but that has to wait until I am done with a few other English and Chinese books I am about to read.

Anyway, here are a few shots of the museum

Travel bug Tigger and Digicam in front of Hemingway Museum

Hemingway Museum

Old style drinking fountain inside

Sign in front of the museum

Here is a shot of a restaurant called Hemingway’s Bistro across street. It has interesting meat/game/fish dishes, probably because Hemingway is an avid hunter/angler. We never eat here before so I cannot comment on its food.

Walk around 150 meters north, you will be at Hemingway’s childhood house on Oak Park avenue. It is also a museum now. Note the two travel bugs sitting on top of the sign:

A shot of the house

The mischievous Jedi in front of Hemingway’s birth place

By the way, there are some great houses in Oak Park. Unfortunately, housing price has gone through the roof in this area, so we couldn’t afford any, even ordinary ones that middle class people are supposed to be able to afford. One person told me that his friend bought a Frank Lloyd Wright designed house a few years ago. Now the house is valued so high on the market that he could not afford to pay property taxes!

Speaking of Frank Lloyd Wright, here is a shot of his studio at Oak Park:

Frank Lloyd Wright home studio

The sign in front of it

I don’t know much about him. After I read this entry on wikipedia, I actually grew a distaste for this guy. I don’t know about you, but his Prairie Style furniture looks like torture devices to me. They are definitely not ergonomically correct and not natural in my eye. Check out this, especially the chairs. They give me a cold and depressing feeling.

A few other Prairie Style architecture here, some are not designed by him personally. They look interesting, but I don’t know if they are functionally good houses. Just my personal opinion.

Unity Temple, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Again honestly, I don’t care for it that much, but it is (somewhat) famous.

SQL Server 2005 provides a utility called DTS Migration Wizard to help you move your legacy DTS 2000 packages to SSIS format. It is not guaranteed to work perfectly, but it will make a best-effort attempt.

Initially, you may want to install DTS runtime on the SQL Server 2005 box so you can continue running DTS 2000 package as is. To do that, you need to run setup again. This is how you do that:

1. Run setup.exe;
2. After installing supporting files, configuration check, and other preparation work, you are presented with “Components to Install” screen. Click Advanced button;
3. Expand Client Components, then pick Legacy Components;
4. Proceed to finish setup.

However, the Legacy Components are not supported on 64-bit platforms. You will get the message below if you try:

“None of the selected features can be installed or upgraded. Setup cannot proceed since no effective change is being made to the machine. To continue, click Back and then select features to install. To exit SQL Server Setup, click Cancel.”

Bummer. You can get more information here regarding Integration Services considerations on 64-bit computers.

I talked about roles and permissions in DotNetNuke (DNN) in this post.

Sometimes you want to grant a role authority so users with that role can upload image files for their documents. Here is how you do it:

1. From the Admin menu, usually at the far right of the horizontal menu bar, pick File Manager;
2. You will see File Manager, Windows Explorer style. Underneath it is a section called Security Settings. This is where you grant view and/or write access to folders on the server.

几个星期前读完了《远征北极纪实－极地心路》。作者沈爱民是中国科协的工作人员。他在1993至1995年间策划并参与了我国北极科学考察工作。这本书描述了这一科学考察的筹备、培训、及实施过程。该书经中国文联出版公司1997年出版，很值得一读。

很多人都知道我国在上世纪八十年代就已在南极设立了永久科学考察站，而对北极却缺少系统的研究。但也有不少人认为到北极插上国旗最重要。这确是本末倒置。按说插国旗是应该的，但科学考察应是主要目的。更何况不少个人、团体多年以来到过北极，所以单到那里并不是什么新鲜事儿。可由于最终目标的摇摆性、不少人的虚荣心和个人主义，最后的成果不如预期。该书对此都有很详尽的描述。作者也用不少的篇幅讲述了这一过程运作中的组织、管理、及资金筹备的问题，其中谈到了他与位梦华的矛盾。位梦华是该活动的另一位组织参与者。我没有读过位梦华的书，所以不能妄下结论。但从字面上来看，沈爱民的分析是客观、理性的。

读完这本书我也感到我们不少人对国际惯例和商业运作的不熟悉及幼稚。像是和美国旅行社签合同时不能对一些看似微不足道、但实际上很重要的合同细节的落实；科考队员在没有签证的情况下凭运气直闯加拿大海关入境。而这些都是到过西方、住在大都市的白领阶层所为，读来真是好笑。好在这都是发生在10多年前的事情，想必现在一定改进了不少吧。

沈爱民的文笔非常好。他在书中娴熟地穿插了自己的经历和很有品味的诗作。再加上幽默的文笔，这都给该书增色不少。

书中多处流露着对大自然之美的赞颂和热爱。我很欣赏这种态度。我们以前的教育充满了“人定胜天”、“征服大自然”的态度。这个态度不是我们的专利，它从19世纪工业革命后盛极一时，对我们的环境破坏巨大。自然界是我们所有人赖以生存的基础；节约、有效的利用资源，保护并改善我们的环境应是我们着力解决的重大问题之一。

我对作者对李乐诗的介绍也很感兴趣，虽然篇幅并不多。李乐诗是来自香港的女探险家和摄影家。我在厦大时(1990-1994)，她曾到我校演讲及办摄影展。我对她很敬佩。演讲时她幽默地说她的长相在中国人中吃不开，但外国人却经常赞美她的容貌，给我的印象很深。

这本书闲适时读起来不错，我想把它作为MBA的个案分析教程也很好，因为这个科考过程涉及到组织、管理、筹资、沟通、合同、对外合作、团队精神、和集体主义的方方面面。这一切对在校的MBA和工作中的管理者都会很有启发的。

The Council On Foreign Relations claimed that it has obtained a copy of the letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to US President George W. Bush.

The link here points to a pdf file. It is not the official translation. I have to say that the quality of the translation is not very good. It is kind of crude and punctuations marks were not used properly. But the central points of the letter did come through.

Have a read and draw your own conclusions, instead of just getting the sound bite version from the mainstream news outlets. Most of them just quoted one sentence from the letter, namely, the one when he commented about rights of technical research.

Update: Flickr changed its interface, so the scripts in step 2 and 3 no longer work. I will update this as I get more information.

If you have Flickr account and use Firefox, I found 2 Greasemonkey scripts that are very helpful. They make photo editing so much more easier. They are both focused on Flickr batch operations.

Here is what I did, hopefully somebody will find it helpful:

1. Download and install Greasemonkey extention for Firefox if you don’t have it already. Restart of Firefox may be necessary;
2. Install this Greasemonkey script for batch title, description, and tag editing;
3. Install this Greasemonkey script to pick pictures for batch editing.

If you are interested, I have a post on software that I always put on my own machines.

What are your favorite Flickr hacks?

The walking distance between our condominium and Benjamin’s school is about 700 meters. Because it is so close to school, the school bus does not serve our area. We could let him take the bus if we walk about 1 and half blocks south to the school bus stop, but we didn’t. Instead, I send him to school everyday. I really enjoy that time in the morning with him. It is a great feeling, lots of fun, and good exercise for me. Had we lived a little farther from school, we may have let him take the school bus.

When he started first grade last September, he rode his bike a lot, while I followed. I can only wish that I could ride with him, because our place is too small to store an adult bike. His bike had training wheels on then. It is a small bike. The wheels are around 35 centimeters in diameter. So I cannot ride on it.

He really liked that bike before first grade. We had a lot of fun with it. However, he gradually lost interest in riding to school. I guess he may thought it is a little embarrassing with the training wheels. For whatever reason, I didn’t take the training wheels off for him and let him practice riding then. In hindsight, I think that is a good decision.

So we started walking to school. Sometimes that can be a struggle, because he walks slow and I don’t want to be late. (Tip to me: get ready early. My better half probably would say “Dah” when she reads this.) Once in a while he would ask me to drive him. I didn’t like the idea but offered to do it once a week, when it rains or snows.

Then winter came. When it snowed, I would pull the sled while he sits on it to school. That was a lot of fun. A lot of times he would lie on the sled and ask me to pull it as fast as I could. That was pretty thrilling to him. When there was not enough snow or ice on the road, we would walk. I like the feeling of walking on snow and hearing the crushing sound of it under my feet. Benjamin likes to stomp his boots on ice to crack them.

I had seen foldable Razor scooters before so I want to get one for him. Benjamin likes it too because a popular cartoon character called Jimmy Neutron has a scooter. I couldn’t remember when, but we finally got him one. That is a great mode of transportation for a couple of months. I was impressed that he learned to use it pretty fast. The ice skating lessons must have helped him in achieving good body coordination.

About 2 weeks ago, the school organized a ride-to-school event. He was excited about it and asked me to take off the training wheels so he can practice. I was worried that it may take him a while to learn to ride without them. To my surprise, he got it right away without my help at all. Now he is riding to school everyday.

This is a picture of him practicing in front of the library. It was drizzling that afternoon.

So it has come full circle for us. We started first grade riding bike, we will probably end first grade riding bike. The only thing is that the bike is getting smaller. It is time to get a new one soon. Hopefully it will be big enough for me to ride back home in the morning, instead of carrying it.

I will probably write about Chinese first grade and American first grade when I have time. There are differences and similarities. Now that is a surprise.

Lastly, here is a shot of him playing at Scoville Park again:

In sqlcmd, you can connect to a different server by this command:

:connect MyServer

The above command will attempt to use integrated / Windows Active Directory authentication. To use traditional Sql Server authentication, use this instead:

:connect MyServer -U MyLogin

You can do the same kind of thing in Oracle Sql Plus by using this command:

conn[ect] MyLogin@OracleSID

For mysql command line, use this:

connect -h MyServer -u MyLogin -p

That is assuming that you are allowed to login to the MySql server from whereever you are now.

A few weeks ago, I ran into an issue with a SQL Server 2005 database restored from a Sql Server 2000 backup file. I want to share how I resolved this, hopefully it will be helpful to somebody.

You can restore a Sql Server 2000 database backup to a SQL Server 2005 server. When pages are finished restoring, SQL Server 2005 will attempt to convert and upgrade the database from its previous version. After that, the database is open and almost ready to server customers. Below is a sample output of this restore and upgrade process:

Processed 344 pages for database ‘northwind’, file ‘Northwind’ on file 1.
Processed 1 pages for database ‘northwind’, file ‘Northwind_log’ on file 1.
Converting database ‘northwind’ from version 539 to the current version 611.
Database ‘northwind’ running the upgrade step from version 539 to version 551.
Database ‘northwind’ running the upgrade step from version 551 to version 552.
Database ‘northwind’ running the upgrade step from version 552 to version 553.
Database ‘northwind’ running the upgrade step from version 553 to version 554.
Database ‘northwind’ running the upgrade step from version 554 to version 589.
Database ‘northwind’ running the upgrade step from version 589 to version 590.
Database ‘northwind’ running the upgrade step from version 590 to version 593.
Database ‘northwind’ running the upgrade step from version 593 to version 597.
Database ‘northwind’ running the upgrade step from version 597 to version 604.
Database ‘northwind’ running the upgrade step from version 604 to version 605.
Database ‘northwind’ running the upgrade step from version 605 to version 606.
Database ‘northwind’ running the upgrade step from version 606 to version 607.
Database ‘northwind’ running the upgrade step from version 607 to version 608.
Database ‘northwind’ running the upgrade step from version 608 to version 609.
Database ‘northwind’ running the upgrade step from version 609 to version 610.
Database ‘northwind’ running the upgrade step from version 610 to version 611.
RESTORE DATABASE successfully processed 345 pages in 0.335 seconds (8.418 MB/sec).

However, if you try to recreate the same login used in the Sql Server 2000 instance with the same authority, you may get this error, because a restore also restores the users within that database, and login user mapping will not be successful:

User, group, or role ‘test’ already exists in the current database. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 15023)

All right, I then attempted to drop that user. I did it through Databases -> Database -> Security -> Users under Sql Server Management Studio. But I got this message:

The database principal owns a schema in the database, and cannot be dropped. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 15138)

You see, SQL Server 2005 enhanced the concept of schema. As part of the restore and upgrade process, a schema with the same name as the user was created. Since I know all objects are owned by dbo in the original database, I can safely drop the schema (Databases -> Database -> Security -> Schemas through Sql Server Management Studio). And that is exactly what I did. After that, I was able to create the login and user successfully. All is well afterwards.

1. From Admin menu, the right-most menu item before the search box, pick “Security Roles”;
2. You will see all the roles here. Click the pencil icon next to each role to edit it;
3. To create a new role, click on Security Roles downward triangle icon, which is next to the lock icon, and pick “Add New Role”;
4. For my purpose, I left “Public Role?” and “Auto Assignment?” unchecked. I also left Advanced Settings alone, where Billing Period, Service Fee, Trial Fee, and such are located. I honestly could not envision myself using any of them. Your mileage may vary;
5. To grant permissions to this role, browse to any page or module, then pick “Settings” after hovering you mouse over the downward triangle. You can grant permissions of this page / module to a role by un/checking boxes in the Permissions section within Basic Settings;
6. To grant a role to a user, go to Admin >> User Accounts. Edit the user you want to grant the role to, and click “Manage Roles for this User”. From there, you can check and roles for this user.